by Tuyen Nguyen
In March 2019, the Vietnamese Mennonite churches of LMC stopped meeting in person and moved to Zoom. That change led us to experience what the apostle Paul said in Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.” People in Vietnam began to join our worship services in the USA by Zoom. They began to participate in our Bible studies by Zoom. After a month of meditation and prayer, the Lord said “Start English Zoom Classes.” So in April, the first English class started. In a few weeks, we had three English classes. Many of the students were pastors from Vietnam.
The churches in Vietnam prayerfully set goals for the year. As teams of evangelists went out, they reported weekly results. The Lord answered their prayer abundantly. From 500 new believers and 10 churches (approved by the government) in 2019, the Lord gave an increase to 10 new churches and 789 new believers in 2020. By July 2021, they numbered about 1840 new believers. Sick people were healed and many baptized. Because of the Covid delta-variant, the churches in Vietnam have stopped gathering again except by Zoom. Most churches now have as many as 50 people joining Zoom worship. One church has 800 participants on Zoom. The local people call this “the Mennonite phenomenon.” A revival is happening among the Vietnamese Mennonite churches around the world.
The Vietnamese LanguageBesides being the official language of Vietnam and the native language of the Vietnamese people, it is spoken by a total of 93 million people around the globe. That number makes it the most common Austroasiatic language in the world.Vietnamese employs six tones. A change in tone changes the meaning of the word. For example: ca ( mug), cà (eggplants), cả (all), cá (fish). The current written system of Vietnamese was developed by Catholic missionaries in the seventeenth century but was not officially used until the beginning of the twentieth century. French colonial rule of Vietnam led to the official adoption of the Vietnamese alphabet based on the Latin alphabet. Sentence structures in the Vietnamese language have the same “subject-verb-object” word order as used in English.
The Vietnamese LanguageBesides being the official language of Vietnam and the native language of the Vietnamese people, it is spoken by a total of 93 million people around the globe. That number makes it the most common Austroasiatic language in the world.
Vietnamese employs six tones. A change in tone changes the meaning of the word. For example: ca ( mug), cà (eggplants), cả (all), cá (fish). The current written system of Vietnamese was developed by Catholic missionaries in the seventeenth century but was not officially used until the beginning of the twentieth century. French colonial rule of Vietnam led to the official adoption of the Vietnamese alphabet based on the Latin alphabet. Sentence structures in the Vietnamese language have the same “subject-verb-object” word order as used in English.